


Who We Are

by oneifby (orphan_account)



Category: Fringe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Related, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/oneifby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In any relationship where you knew the alternate universe version of that person, there's bound to be some... complications.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who We Are

He loved waking up before her. Most days Fringe Division would ring in the middle of the night or just before dawn. He’d listen groggily as she rolled over and grab her vibrating, blinking cell phone and speak quietly to whoever was on the other side. She’d tried to get him one, but he just couldn’t get used to them, the size and thickness of a credit card. She threw up her hands in dismay after he drowned the third one while on a case.

“The man had been breathing fire,” he explained afterwards, as she paced back and forth in the office. “How was I to know about the smoke activated cloud seeding?” She dug an ancient phone out of the evidence department, the size of a stack of Post-Its, and let him use that. “You look like a hippie,” she teased him, and once he realized she meant “hipster”, the look of outraged dismay on his face sent her into peals of laughter, tears streaming down. So the only person he ever called was her, and the Fringe Division knew better than to call him.

 

But on the days they weren’t on duty, she would let herself be the night owl she really was. She’d stay up until two or three finishing the bureau reports she put off until the last possible second, reports that ended up in Charlie’s inbox with subject like “ _The One Where That Lady Got Guys Pregnant_ ” and “ _I Think This Happened At The Diner You Threw Up In One Time But It Could Have Been The One Where I Broke the Table_ ”.

She came to bed long after he had fallen asleep, so every time he woke and saw her curled up next to him it was a surprise to him. Every morning was relearning that he hadn’t dreamed it all. That she really did exist. It was like having the best form of amnesia.

 

He reached over and brushed her short, coppery bangs out of her eyes. She wore a threadbare t-shirt from the US Olympic team of the 2002 Rome games, another thing that made her unvelievable to him. She'd had this incredible, amazing history and now he was part of it, part of her life. He looked down at her, limbs splayed across the bed, and quietly pulled back the navy blue bedspread on his side. The two labs, sleeping at the foot of the bed, padded after him as he left the room.

She woke up fifteen minutes later, felt on the other side of the bed for him, and opened her eyes. She debated worrying about where he was and going back to sleep when she heard the jangling of the dogs’ leashed. She rolled over to where he had left an indent in the mattress and fell asleep again.

 

When the sunlight poured across her face an hour later she was sitting up against the seafoam headboard, highlighting and marking reports from field officers across the country. Some were real Fringe cases, like the one with the attached photo of the glowing rats taking over a restaurant kitchen, or the one where the man’s eyes had fallen back into his head. Others were imagined or hoped for, a local cop angling for national attention.

She heard the sizzling of a pan and then a crash, followed by “Shit”, from the kitchen. Quickly, she put the papers on her bedside table, laid down, and closed her eyes. He opened the door gently, trying not to trip over the dogs with the heavy tray in his hands.

“Liv,” he said softly. “Breakfast.”

She yawned theatrically and smiled up at him. “This is why I keep you around.”

“I thought it was my excellent dancing,” he said innocently, beaming as she pulled herself up against the headboard and he placed the tray, loaded with a heaping pile of eggs, bacon, and toast in front of her.

She took a long sip of the orange juice before answering. “In spite of your dancing.”

“Hush,” he said, lying down beside her. The dogs watched in jealousy.

“You are _many_ things, Lincoln, but you are not light on your feet. Remember the party Secretary Bishop threw? You literally stepped on the toes of so many ambassadors there that the Secret Service had to intervene. Respectfully, of course. Your dancing is so bad it is a matter of national security.”

“I thought that was because the agents were scared of all of them falling in love with me,” he replied matter-of-factly, reaching for a piece of bacon.

She slapped his hand away and laughed. “You did not. The husband of the Peruvian ambassador almost punched you in the face. Did you feed Rachel and Broyles?”

“Yes,” he answered happily, having stolen a toast triangle, and as she opened her mouth again, added, “One cup dry food, one half wet food. Each.”

“Thank you _daaaarling_ ,” she sang, taking his head in her hands and kissing each of his cheeks before landing on his mouth.

 

They ate slowly, easily. He read the opinion pages and she took the international news, tossing the dogs toast crusts and the fatty parts of the bacon surreptitiously. The labs waited by the side of the bed patiently, paws crossed. The black one whined a bit, and was immediately nipped by the blonde.

When the tray was empty, she stood up and brought it to the kitchen. She looks around at the pots and pans, scattered across the stovetop, and sighed. Picking up the plates, she dumped them into the sink and turned on the hot water. Through the window just above the sink she watched as a father carried his young son on his shoulders past the apple tree in the front yard. She heard him come in behind her. He reached over to drop his mug in the suds and she grabbed his wrist.

“The fuck is this,” she demanded, fingering a bright red welt on his arm.

He unwound her fingers, shifting uneasily. “I, uh, accidentally touched the egg pan. It’s not a big deal!”

Her eyes narrowed. “Did you run it under cold water? Put antibiotic on it?”

“Liv, it’s fine,” he protested.

She crossed her arms, unconvinced. “Did you?”

“Yes, _Mom_ ,” he said, exasperated. She relaxed and the furrow between her eyebrows melted away. “It’s not bad anyway! I don’t remember you being this concerned when you got shot in St. Louis.”

“That was different,” she explained, turning back to the sink. “My body is a natural healer. Unlike your frail limbs and torso. You’re essentially a china doll.”

“Bullshit,” he replied. He watched her sink her hands into the soapy water. She laughed and grinned back at him over her shoulder. He thought that she had never looked as beautiful as she did at that moment, sun falling through the skylight and bathing her in gold. Like when we met, he thought briefly, then blanched. He hadn’t been thinking of her. I-it was the other woman. Olivia.

It was just his luck that she turned around at that moment. Saw his face. She knew that look. Her eyes became guarded, her lips tight. “What was it this time,” she asked harshly. “What did you see, Linc.”

He rubbed his neck, staring down at the hardwood floor, then met her eyes. “It... you looked like her. When I met her. It reminded me of th-that day.”

She wiped her hands on a tea towel. “I’m always going to look like her, you know. That’s the problem of being the same people in parallel universes. Comes with the territory, I’m afraid.”

He nodded and she turned back to the dishes stiffly.

"I want to tell you something, " he said to her.

She turned at the tone in his voice, looked him in the eye. "Okay," she replied seriously.

"In the other universe, over there," he paused, "we called you... Fauxlivia."

"Portmanteau of Faux and Olivia," she clarified slowly. He nodded, watching her face. "Catchy," she said lightly, but he didn’t miss the hurt in her voice, the way her back hunched over as she turned back to the sink.

"Did you come up with that, " she asked, still turned away.

"No, but I used it," he admitted. "Often."

She didn’t move, just scrubbed the pot harder.

He took her by the shoulders, turned her around. "I'm telling you this," he said, "because I don't want to hide anything from you. I want to tell you my truth."

She stared at the ground and shook her head, in anger or in sadness he couldn’t tell. “I made the decision,” he tried. “I chose this world--I chose you.”

“But I’ll never know if you made that decision because you actually wanted to be with me,” she snapped, suddenly glaring up at him, “or... because you couldn’t be with her. The ‘other’ Olivia.”

He flinched. She was right, and he knew she was right, which made it all the worse.

“Do you know what that’s like,” she continued, “constantly wondering if she was a better cook, or laughed at your stupid jokes, or if you ever gave her head massages like you do me?”

“I like when you just raise your eyebrow at my stupid jokes,” he said softly.

She ignored him. “I was never in love with my Lincoln. You don’t have to wonder about that.”

He didn’t know what to say. She searched his face for a moment, trying to find an answer. Something, anything. When none came up, she threw the towel at him and ran her fingers beneath her eyes, wiping away the black circles that came from going to sleep without taking off her eyeliner. “Fuck,” she said.

 

They passed most of the day in silence. She heard the heavy oak door open, then a pause as he debated saying something. The door closed without a sound. He dropped some packages off downtown, visited the farmers’ market. The tomatoes were bright and firm.

One of the women behind the stand eyed him approvingly. “Know your produce, doncha,” she remarked. He blushed. “Good on ya,” she added, taking his tomatoes and placing them on the scale. “people don’t appreciate their veggies these days.”

Fruit, he thought but didn’t say. He could hear her voice in his head-- “Oh good, another nice moment ruined by your pedantics. No, please explain what defines a fruit and a berry again, I’m just _dying_ to hear.” Instead, he just smiled, paid the woman, and moved on.

 

When he got home, the house was dark. He put the steaks, bread, and produce on the wooden kitchen counter before going from room to room. The dogs, sleeping in the living room, raised their heads when he looked in, but laid back down when no food materialized. Finally he found her in the backyard, lying in her hammock in the shade. He walked out and leaned against one of the redwoods. She didn’t open her eyes but he could tell by her breathing she was awake.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves hit the book in her lap.

“Steak and bruchetta for dinner,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” she replied, unmoving. “Did you get--”

“I got the root beer you asked for,” he affirmed, turning and heading back into the house.

“Medium--”

“RARE, I KNOW,” he yelled, sliding the glass door open and stepping through. Her lips curved up into a smile.

 

Dinner was instinctive--he passed the steak sauce to her before she asked for it, she refilled his merlot when she saw it more than halfway empty. The dogs he locked in the kitchen (well, he shut them in the kitchen and they were terrified of pushing the swinging door so it served the same purpose as locking) and they could hear the whimpers and scratching. She raised an eyebrow.

“They way they carry on,” she said dryly, “you’d think we starve them.”

“They would eat straight out of the garbage if we let them,” he agreed. “Our very own garbage disposals.”

 

Afterwards, as she was putting the dishes in the dishwasher, he took a deep breath.

“It’s hard for me to explain,” he started slowly. “To answer your questions from this morning. How can you know, I mean, that I am actually in love with you. It’s hard to answer because I honestly cannot imagine myself anywhere else, with anyone else. Including her. Especially her. God, it’s, it’s incomprehensible to me.”

She watched him wring his hands as she pushed her hair back behind one ear.

“You mentioned that you were never in love with him,” he said finally. “Me. The other me.”

She nodded silently, bit her lip.

“But that’s not for lack of trying, Olivia. He loved you. I know he loved you. I saw it the first time I met him. Met you. And if that’s not enough, everyone else knew he loved you. It’s not your fault, you’re very lovable.” She choked out a laugh. “But. Could you imagine being here with him instead of me? Living the life we have, with him?”

She shook her head, eyes glistening.

“And isn’t the fact that I’m different enough from him for you to fall in love with me show you how different you and she are? I once thought I was in love with the other, the-- Olivia. You know that. But I didn’t know then what it could be like to tru-truly care about someone enough to want to give more of yourself to them. When I was over there, I thought loving her meant that I had to aspire to become a better person, to fit with her. But it wasn’t a better person. It was a different person. It was someone I wasn’t and will never be. I know this because being with you makes me a better person. The best person I could be, I think. I'm telling you this so you know that I know you are not her. I'm not in love with her. I don’t know if I ever was, but I know absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I love you." He stopped and took a breath, watching her.

She stood stock still for a long moment. Then she took her hand and ran it up through his hair, watching him carefully. He looked back into her eyes, defiant.

“Good,” she said softly. “Because it would fucking suck to have my child grow up without a father.”

His eyes widened and jaw dropped, all firmness gone. She watched his face happily.

“Are you,” he asked. “I mean, how...”

“ _We’re_ ,” she corrected him, grinning.

“Holy shit,” he said.

“My thoughts exactly,” she replied, taking him by the hand and leading him up to their bedroom.

 

“ _I’m swimming in sunshineeee, uhh-huh_ ,” she sang along to the radio, swinging her hips from side to side, hands deep in the suds. “ _And don’t it feel good_!”

He grinned so hard his cheeks hurt. He hadn’t been able to stop smiling. It’s instinctual, he thought. Something inside him learned to associate her with this kind of... unceasing joy.

She continued to sing and scrub. He walked up behind her and put his hands on her hips, letting his head rest on her shoulder. She smelled of lavender, and almond soap, and the detergent that they picked out together. They needed something that could get blood out, but was gentle on the clothes.

“Hey you,” she said into his ear. “The deal was clear. You cook and I clean. If you’re getting in my way, I can’t clean. Get the picture?”

“Mmm,” he responded, and leaned in closer.

“All right,” she teased, “you asked for it.” Suddenly she dropped the plate, lifted her hands out of the water, and placed a pile of bubbles on his head. “Beautiful,” she smiled, and massaged the soap into his head.

“I hate you,” he said, water dripping down his face.

“Mmm,” she replied, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “Go and get dressed.”

“And your singing’s off tune,” he yelled as he climbed the stairs to their bedroom.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she called back, eyes crinkling. “ _AND DON’T IT FEEL GOOD_!”

**Author's Note:**

> There was a cut scene from the last season of Fringe, when Olivia asks for the alt. universe's help, when you saw Alt-Liv and Lincoln with their son. I haven't seen the last season DVD, but I am *praying* that is on there because even just hearing about it made me melt.  
> This was my version of a replacement.


End file.
